This article will give you a brief explanation of how muscles work in a body.

Our body consists of 639 muscles which give us the ability to give us strength and allow us to move which can be from running to smiling at the blink of an eye. A muscle may be attached to another muscle, bone, or skin. It may either be a part of a layer system combining the effects of several muscles or an autonomous unit. A muscle functions by contracting or shortening itself, and then relaxing. Think of it as spring that shortens when you push down on it and lengthens when you let go.

The contraction of some slowly acting muscles is controlled at least in part by hormones circulating in the blood stream, but when quicker control is necessary, muscles contract in response to independent nerve impulses giving signal to each fiber it needs to move. Another muscle moves voluntarily in such situations when you throw a ball or you walk, while others move involuntarily in situations where the muscles in our stomach automatically churn food while you eat. Once the two are put together, a complex chemical reaction takes place which converts them into the mechanical energy that lets you move carbon dioxide and other by-products of the chemical reaction that are carried away by the flood and exhaled through the lungs.

Muscles are the place where your body’s chemical energy is converted into mechanical energy. At the moment, when a muscle receives the signal to move, the fibers combine glycogen – a type of carbohydrate accumulated in the muscle with oxygen that is brought in by the circulating blood from the lungs.